U-S-A! U-S-oops! There goes interest in Olympic baseball:

TIME OUT
U-S-A! U-S-oops! There goes interest in Olympic baseball

Mike Lopresti, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Now let's see if we've got this straight. The USA -- which has given the world Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds and sausage races -- failed to qualify for the 2004 Olympics in baseball, but the Netherlands did?

And the Americans were sent packing in the quarterfinals of the qualifying tournament by Mexico, who then was mashed by Canada 11-1?

Or am I getting this mixed up with curling?

And Mexico went 0-3 in pool play and only got into the quarterfinals by forfeit, when the team didn't even show up from ... the Bahamas?

Somewhere, Abner Doubleday ain't happy.

Neither, by the way, is NBC, which won't be showing much baseball next summer from Greece. That venue will be so far from the spotlight in Athens, even the terrorists won't show up.

This is bad news for American prestige. Mom is always supposed to be gentle, the apple pie is always supposed to be good, and the U.S. Olympic baseball team is always supposed to be good enough to get in the same tournament as Italy.

But times have changed. Matter of fact, the United States is in danger in any sport when it sends the junior varsity.

U-S-A! U-S-oops! There goes interest in Olympic baseball

Do it in tennis, and Croatia drops the ax in the first round of the Davis Cup. Do it in basketball, and the NBAers are losing to Spain and finishing sixth in the world championships.

Remember how the America's Cup turned out? We couldn't outdo landlocked Switzerland in boats.

And now someone from Mexico is blowing away American hitters. Rigo Beltran vs. the Yanks looked like Josh Beckett vs. the Yankees.

But it is worse news for baseball's shaky attempt to make it as an Olympic sport. There has always been a question if it can improve on its middling popularity -- somewhere beneath women's gymnastics and above field hockey. It needs faces. It needs names. It needs at least some of its most accomplished athletes.

It has none. Nor will it ever. Major league baseball is not the NHL. It will never shut down for two weeks to enhance the quality of sliders in the Olympics. No matter how much fun it'd be watching Kerry Wood facing Sammy Sosa with a gold medal on the line.

For fans, Olympic baseball in its brief life has meant deciding which U.S. minor leaguers look like the best prospects. That, and studying the Cuban pitchers to predict who the next one will be to defect.

The U.S. flop was not the only oddball feature of the Americas' qualifying tournament. The Dominican Republic did not even send a team, and everyone knows you could drop by any park in San Pedro de Marcoris, choose nine kids, and in three or four years finish third in the National League East.

Pity about next summer, though. Olympic baseball had a genuine box office and television ratings pep pill in the wings.

Roger Clemens, with a fastball on his mind.

It had been widely speculated that Clemens, barely retired, would be pitching for the United States in Athens, brushing back hitters from every continent. He mentioned the possibility during the World Series, although he added, "I don't know if I'm going to feel that I want to get up off the couch."

Now, he won't have to. He can stay on his couch, turn on the Olympics and watch the Netherlands play Greece. It'll probably be on tape-delay at 3 a.m., in between team handball and water polo.

Mike Lopresti writes for Gannett News Service.